大亨小傳

Book Excerpts (Peguin Classics)

“If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay” said Gatsby. “You always have a green light that burns all nights at the end of your dock.”  Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever.  Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon.  Now it was again a green light on a dock.  His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one. (Gatsby and Daisy, P90)

I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified.  It was all very careless and confused.  They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made … (Nick, P170)

And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes – a fresh, green breast of the new world.  Its vanished trees, that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green at the end of Daisy’s dock.  He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so closed that he could hardly fail to grasp it.  He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.  It eluded us then, that’s no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further … and one fine morning -  

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. (Nick, P171 & 172)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

Book Reviews  

One of the best novels to have come out of America: concisely expressed, rich in imagination, lyrical in style. Anthony Powell, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Century

Fitzgerald confronts no less a problem than what might be involve, what might be at stake, in trying to see, and write, America itself, The Great Gatsby is, I believe, the most perfectly crafted work of fiction to have come out of America. Tony Tanner, In the Introduction

A Modern classic, a key American novel … for once, Fitzgerald really had won what he wanted: to create, amid the glitter and the gold, “a conscious artistic achievement” Malcolm Bradbury, Mail on Sunday

It must be one of the most perfect novels even written.  Technique and tact and moral sensibility are as finely tuned as in any of Turgeniev’s great novels, and yet it is as American as Hollywood. John McGahern, Irish Times

A prose that has the tough delicacy of a garnet. Brad Leithauser, the New York Review of books

Lost time and the irretrievability of the past are themes which filter through almost every page of this exquisite novel. Jason Cowley, Sunday Times

海明威讚譽有加；名詩人兼文評家艾略特稱之為「美國小說自亨利．詹姆斯以來邁出的第一步」。村上春樹鍾愛的作家之一！

小說透過完美的藝術形式描寫了一九二零年代、販酒暴發戶蓋次璧所追求的「美國夢」幻滅、揭示了衣香鬢影社會蘊藏的悲劇。費滋傑羅栩栩如生將「爵士時代」的生活氣息融入作品中。

青年軍官傑伊·蓋茨比出生於美國中西部一個普通農家、英俊聰明、於浪漫的好夢。他在南方一個大城市駐防時、和“大家閨秀”黛西一見鍾情,私訂終身。蓋茨比出征歐洲期間、美麗風流的未婚妻卻嫁給了紈絝子弟湯姆·布坎農。

蓋茨比復員歸國、在紐約從事非法的私酒生意、發了橫財、決心奪回舊愛。這時湯姆和黛西已趕時髦遷居大紐約市長島豪宅、蓋茨比便在其海灣對面買下一所更加豪華的別墅、經常舉行盛大的晚會、等待機會吸引黛西前來赴會、以期重溫舊夢。久別重逢、黛西深為蓋茨比忠貞的愛情所感動、也為他的財富動心。湯姆發現兩人間的隱情後、在紐約尋釁攤牌、當眾揭露蓋茨比靠私酒買賣暴富。蓋茨比不甘示弱、坦陳兩人間五年不渝的愛情、要求黛西跟他走、黛西卻拒絕和粗鄙不忠的丈夫分手。黛西駕車從紐約回家途中、心緒不寧、撞死了湯姆的情婦威爾遜太太。蓋茨比決心為她承擔罪責。湯姆謊稱駕車的是蓋茨比、並唆使威爾遜槍殺了蓋茨比。

轉載 作者簡介 (時代出版)

費滋傑羅（F. Scott Fitzrerald），二十世紀美國最具代表性的作家。一八九六年九月二十四日生於美國明尼蘇達州聖保羅市，家境並不富裕。一九一七年自普林斯頓大學輟學入伍。一九二零年出版《天堂的這邊》（This Side of Paradise）而成名，同年與賽爾妲結婚。一九二二年出版《美麗和毀滅的》（The Beautiful and Damned）、《爵士年代的故事》（Tale of the Jazz Age）。一九二四年遷居法國。一九二五年出版《大亨小傳》。一九三工年完成《夜未央》（Tender is the Night），當時費滋傑羅自身已長期有酗酒問題，而妻子精神狀況不佳。一九三九年開始寫作《最後的影壇大班》。一九四零年十二月心臟衰竭而亡。

費滋傑羅的作品成功在於他本人雖然縱身酒食徵逐，但卻又能同時冷眼旁觀，體味酒醒人散的悵惘，以淒婉的筆調書寫了戰後「迷失的一代」對於「美國夢」感到幻滅的悲哀。